


Even the hangman has friends

by killbot2000



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/No Comfort, M/M, Minor Angst, Minor Character Death, Smoking, bounty hunter has no emotional intelligence are you kidding me, guys bein bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24731056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killbot2000/pseuds/killbot2000
Summary: For someone who made his living with cutthroats, adjusting to honorable companions isn’t as easy as expected.
Relationships: Bounty Hunter/Highwayman (Darkest Dungeon)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This pairing keeps me awake at night. Literally. It’s 10:30 and I want to go to sleep but I’m posting this for y’all.  
> Also I don’t care for the bounty hunter’s determined name so i changed it. Angel of death. Dramatic and edgy just like him.
> 
> Title taken from ‘Hangman’ by Fire on Fire

The smell of the ocean swept over him. Not only dead fish, but salt, freezing water, and the wet stone of the beach. Dismas knew he shouldn’t have been this far away from the hamlet on his own but he was suffocating in the town. Several new recruits had rolled in and caused a big fuss in their entrance, and after the premature loss of Baldwin, their pillar of strength, it finally smothered him. He’d saved himself from bashing a young man’s head on the bar but that was the extent of it. 

The cove grotto entrance was in the distance, its jagged maw open to the waves, swallowing tons and tons of seawater in one undulating breath, then breathing it back out into the bay. There were cliffs surrounding the stretch of beach that offered him gentle cover from the winds. 

Dismas took his pipe from his coat and tapped it against the piece of driftwood he sat on. There wasn’t much ash in the bowl to begin with, but it left small charcoal circles on the smooth and pale surface. The smidgen of tobacco he had left settled into the dark wood bowl and he struck a match to light it. The dried leaf flared and burned and he exhaled the sweet smelling smoke into the breeze. 

He wished he could nap there, silent save for the crashing of the waves, but it would be unwise. More foolish than he was already being. He dozed anyway. 

The bag that landed on his feet nearly made him jump straight out of his skin. A harsh breath worked through his throat and nose in surprise and his body betrayed that he was caught terribly off guard. 

Dismas looked up at the source of the bag. An armored figure, donned in leather and scaled armor, his face covered in that ghastly veil. 

“Samael.” He greeted the hunter, voice hoarse from his sleep. 

The bounty hunter said nothing in response, though Dismas didn’t expect him to, and made his way over to the driftwood Dismas sat on and settled down on the end. 

Dismas drew his attention to the bag. One of the hunter’s worn leather ones, the kind he collected molars in. He curled his lip and drew the string loose. 

“Oh.” Dried tobacco was crushed and nearly a powder but there was much of it. “Thanks…” 

Samael dipped his head. He seemed to be looking out at the ocean but Dismas couldn’t tell for sure. Instead he tapped the bowl of his pipe out, brushing the sand off as it had slipped from his sleeping fingers to the ground, and began to refill it. 

“How’d ya find me?” 

The hunter scoffed, “I track for a living.” 

“Yeah well,” Dismas finished filling the bowl, “I do too. Don’t leave no trails.” 

“There’s always a trail.” 

“Sure.” The match flared up and he took a deep inhale. This was nicer than the shit he usually scrounged up. But then again, Samael actually got paid in his profession. Dismas got his head knocked in and fought the other brigands for scraps like wild dogs. 

“Hamlet’s a bit much right now. Had to get away.” 

Samael nodded. He folded his hands and slouched forward, elbows on his knees. He twiddled his gloved thumbs. The wind blew his veil. 

“Here.” Dismas handed him the pipe. 

Samael took it from him. He pulled his veil from under his helmet and it hung loose at a corner. 

Dismas couldn’t sit and watch him smoke so he looked out onto the ocean, the incredible reflection of the sun off the water threatening to blind him. Maybe then the vision of Baldwin’s death would leave him. He’d seen death before, was plenty acquainted with it on the road he was on, and spent plenty of time courting it himself. But there was something so terrible on the fallen king’s pitted and blistered face that showed itself as he was dragged off into the void. The large and bloody mouth frozen in scream. It screamed for him. 

“The leper.” Samael spoke up, “You saw him go down?” 

It was the second time Dismas flinched because of him today. He stole a look at the hunter from the corner of his eye and nodded. 

“Terrible thing.” He commented, “To witness a comrade’s death.” 

“I’ve seen people die long as I can remember. But none of ‘em were like Baldwin.” 

The hunter angled the empty eyes of his helmet at Dismas. “Why’s that, brigand?” 

The bandit curled his lip into a terrible smile. Samael read him like a paper, worn and frayed, a crier spilling his contents for the whole world to hear. He knew the bounty hunter had seen his likeness on plenty of papers before. And on the Old Road; on cowled men who fell to his axe. 

“They got no humanity, Samael. We lived like animals. And when someone died there was just one more seat at the table for ya.” A brisk wind extinguished the pipe in Samael’s hand. The last of the tobacco flew out in a flurry of ash and embers. The bounty hunter’s exposed lips frowned. 

“Alas, dear hunter.” Dismas told him, offering to take the empty pipe back, “There are many seats at this table.” 

“Aye.” He accepted the newly filled pipe. Dismas lit a match and held his hand close to Samael’s face, cupping his fingers to protect the flame. “Though they may be poisoned. There’s no honor to be had here.” 

“Honor’s a myth. Real men can’t be honorable.” What honor was left in the world went up in smoke with the raped villages left behind by the crusades. The glory of the Holy Light was just the midday sun, rotting the carcasses of those killed in its name. 

They sat in silence, listening to the howling of the wind, now wrapping its arms around the sheltered area Dismas had chosen. There was no hope to relight the pipe so Samael left it on the log, spilling out ash. The sun touched down at the water’s edge, staining its depths red and bloody. From the cove echoed the calls of the fishmen. 

“We should get back.” Dismas pocketed his pipe and stood. His scarf whipped violently around his throat. 

Samael stirred and stood as well. It was strange to see his bare skin against the metal of his helmet, maybe it was vulnerability, maybe it was Dismas’ own frustration. He’d seen the face underneath once or twice, scarred and angled. 

The bounty hunter made to fix the veil back to his helmet but Dismas stopped him, pulling down his own scarf to kiss the lips of the hunter. 

He was hungry, desperate for some secret intimacy in a place that somehow knew his every fear. Knew of the bloodied woman and child in their carriage tomb. 

He didn’t feel Samael kiss him back, or the strong gloved hands holding him in place, but he felt the hot tears on his face, and the hair on the back of Samael’s head. It was longer than he expected, hidden away by cloth. 

Dismas pulled away with a strangled gasp, panting shaking his small frame. The hunter made no motion to stop him. 

“Light…” He coughed, “Sorry, I’m sorry.” Dismas hunched in on himself until he caught his breath. When he looked up Samael was just standing here, his lips still parted. 

The brigand looked away, feeling a hot flush of shame crawl up his cheeks in spidery veins. “I… don’t…” And muttered out some excuses that he didn’t really mean. 

“Dismas.” 

He forced himself to look up at the blank eyes of the helmet. He said no words for once and waited. 

Dismas realized how ridiculous it was to expect Samael, of all people, to articulate what it was he was feeling. The bounty hunter seized the front of his shirt and dragged him back against the rocky wall, pushing him none too gently. 

Then his mouth fell open to speak, defend himself again, justify himself once more. How many times had he wound up in this position before? He wondered how much self restraint the hunter had to not tie him up and deliver him back to the city for the bounty pinned on him. 

He braced himself for the wrath of Samael but the bounty hunter just held him there momentarily. It would’ve been intimate has he not been baring his teeth. 

“Dismas.” He repeated. Then he kissed the brigand again, rough and without form. He grasped Dismas’ scruffy jaw in his gloved hand to angle his face upward better, pressing down with greed and pinching his lip between teeth. 

Dismas laid his hands against Samael’s solid and armored form, and broke away to gasp and breathe in salty air. 

“I… ehm.” He told the hunter, feeling embarrassed once again, “Didn’t think you felt that way about me.” 

Samael stroked a thumb across his jaw, “Not what I expected, believe me.” 

“Oh I believe you.” He rolled his eyes and pushed the hunter away from him, pulling the neckerchief up over his mouth once more. “...Why?” 

“Don’t know. I’d like to find out, though.” 

Dismas nodded, “I think we can do that.”


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m just going to dump bits I have with these two here now. Cw for violence, disease/poison/illness

The eyes of the vestal bored into the back of his head as he sprung the trap. It jumped up from the dead leaves, snapping jaws shutting with the force able to shatter bone. Dismas turned to look as the vestal, his smug grin concealed by his neckerchief but he knew she saw it. 

The vestal rolled her eyes, crossing her arms in feigned disinterest. 

“Anyone can do it.” She told him pointedly. Then an arm was slung around her, connected to the toothy grin of Fitzroy. All that could be seen of the woman’s face was that grin, the rest shadowed by her hat brim. 

“Leave the fellow alone.” Fitzroy said to the nun, “We’ve got the rest of the week to squabble like beasts.” 

The vestal gave nothing in reply, but urged them forward. At point, Samael obliged without a word. 

Dismas and the grave robber moved without a sound, so it was only due to Samael in his heavy leather boots that the fungal bodies melted out of the trees and rushed them, clicking and hissing with broken mouths. The party scattered in surprise. 

The vestal Junia rose her torch with a conviction and the blinding light filled the forest. Dismas could see nothing but harsh white and closed his eyes with a snap, bringing his dirk arm up to protect his face. 

“Ya dolt! They don’t fuckin’ have eyes!” He cried. The raucous laughter of Samael filled the forest and he heard the hunter’s axe cleave through flesh and wood. Dismas blinked the afterimages from his eyes and tried to focus on the hunter in front of him. From beside him, a great clawed hand swiped at his head. He attempted to dodge but it connected with his head and knocked him on his ass. 

There were stars in his eyes again and he rolled onto his stomach to get up. The feet of the scratcher stumbled closer to Dismas’ fingers that held his weapons and he adjusted his grip to thrust the dirk into the meaty kneecap of the creature. It stepped and tore its flesh around the knife, struggling to break free. He left the knife and got to his feet. 

Dismas drew his pistol and raised it to what was once the face of a woman, now overgrown and corrupted by pestilence. It burst in a spray of spores and slimy flesh and fell dead. He retrieved his knife with a great tug. 

The scene around him fell quiet, the last of the attackers now dispatched. Fitzroy was collecting her knives and wiping them clean in her boot, the vestal shaking from her mace the remains of a smaller creature fallen host to the fungus. 

“Alright?” Samael dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even seem winded. 

Dismas shrugged, “Got knocked on the head good but I think I’ll be alright.” 

The hunter nodded in response and let his hand slide from Dismas. It was the first concerned gesture that Dismas had really gotten from the man. They pressed on further into the weald. 

What little sky that peeked through the trees got darker the longer they walked and changed from a visceral pink to a deep wine red. They encountered nothing of significance, just rotting animal carcasses and the misplaced pack. Fitzroy pocketed several of the gems when she thought no one was looking and went on her way, pickaxe swinging by her side like she had not a care in the world. Dismas was no rat, though he’d shake her down for a drink once they got back into the hamlet. 

The vestal kept her torch raised high, its merciful light sputtering tar and beginning to waver. They were running low, though she dare not tell the others. 

“Someone up ahead.” Samael stopped them, kneeling down to take a better look at the forest floor. “Bring the torch here.” 

Junia obliged and walked closer to the hunter, careful to step around the area he inspected. 

“Normally, I’d say it was human.” He told them. “But…” 

Dismas regarded the markings on the ground, the scattered leaves and lucky imprint in the mud. 

“How many?” 

The black eyes of Samael’s helmet met his own, “Three or four. We’ll have the upper hand, if only for a moment.” 

“Better make the most of it.” Junia told them grimly, then lifted the torch back up to peer down the forest path. A wind blew leaves across the way, each of them dancing inches above the ground before the wind died and let them all fall to the earth. 

Samael took the lead once more, his axe in one hand, hook in the other, moving cautiously but without fear. Dismas admired that about him. He thought that, even on the man’s deathbed, he would never resist death. Not hesitate or grow afraid. He would remain until his last breath. 

The echoes were quiet, at first. It seemed like just the caress of the wind, the quiet goodbye of a secret lover. The last gasp of an elderly woman. 

But they grew louder. The hissing and shrieking and laughter. The utterings of creatures driven completely mad by parasites that ate away at the brain. The echoes bounced around the brittle trees.

Then they were upon the creatures. A clearing opened up around them and exposed the sky. It would’ve been a mercy, had the sky not looked pitted and diseased, the color of a bruise over a beaten body. Soon it would become black, a suffocating ink that filled their mouths and noses with no hope for breath. 

“I’ve not seen a creature like that before.” Junia said, edging them closer to the fiends across the clearing. 

It looked to be a patchwork woman, made of cloth and flesh and fungus, horns growing from the skull that made up her head. Hate was too kind a word to describe the aura emanating from her. It was as if a point of Hell opened here, and they were magnetized to receive punishment. 

She saw them, and opened the part of her body that was a mouth, and shrieked, great and terrible like a bloated crow. She raised her arms, a blade and what looked to be a doll in her hands. The skull eyes locked onto the party and she brought the knife down into the effigy. 

Dismas fired his pistol at her, hitting the hand that held the knife, turning two fingers into gore. Another shriek filled the air, this one followed with a blinding flash of holy light. An old witch shambled out of the forest, her sunken eyes ripe with malice. Fitzroy met her equally, her lithe form appearing from nothingness, a blade bared so that it sunk into the crone’s stomach. She spat blood upon the grave robber before falling dead. 

Dismas returned his attention to the virago, who regained the dagger in her mutilated hand, and brought up two blighted creatures from the earth to fight alongside her. Their hosts’ teeth gnashed on themselves, the loose ones cracking under the strain. The virago raised her relics once more. 

She stabbed the corn husk doll once more in the chest. This time it bled. 

Beside him, Samael fell suddenly to his knees, gasping sharply in pain, a hand at his throat as if lacking breath. 

“Samael-“ Dismas quickly knelt by him but the hunter pushed him away, clenching his neck under the veil. He pointed to the hag. 

The highwayman rose and drew his pistol again. The sound exploded in the otherwise silent forest. Crows squawked and took flight. There was a bloom of red on the virago’s dress front that dribbled down the dirty fabric and onto the ground. It sizzled when it met the earth. 

Both blighted bodies came for him, their arms extended and eager to spread their poison to him. The vestal joined him in protecting their ailing comrade, her spiked mace readied. 

“Fitz!” Dismas called, “The horned bitch!” 

He heard her high and twinkling laughter before he saw her, lunging at the virago and opening her bodily cavities with the dagger she carried. 

Junia swung at the first creature, cracking its bones and shattering its elbow and Dismas had to duck to avoid its flailing limbs. 

He watched her swing in an arc and bash its head in and the creature fell. Dismas dispatched it as it lay jerking on the forest floor, and moved onto the second. He thrust his dirk into a meaty portion of its shoulder. It bled thick brown fluid; old blood mixed with puss and rot. He stabbed again and again and the thing gurgled in its broken throat and died. Its blood, if that it could be called, ate away at Dismas’ gloves. He shucked them off before the poison could reach his skin. 

Silence returned to the wood as the fighting ceased. 

Behind him, Samael had rolled onto his back, hands twitching on his chest, the vestal hanging over him with a look of distaste. 

“Where was he hit?” Dismal knelt next to him. His hand hovered over the veil around the hunter’s face. 

“Nowhere.” The vestal told him, “It was a hex. The pain is real, but there’s nothing I can do for that.” 

Her words were met with protest, “There’s blood. I can feel it.” 

Dismas shook his head. “There’s no blood, Samael. The nun’s right.” The bounty hunter’s hands turned frantic, grabbing at his cuirass’ neckline and cursing. 

“I’d wager we should make camp here.” Fitzroy told them, standing over Dismas and observing them. He agreed. 

The sky turned that promised ink black by the time they settled in. Samael lay next to the fire, muttering to himself still, Dismas next to him. Fitzroy sat a little farther off, hat pulled over her face against a fallen log and evidently in sleep. The nun meditated with her back to the fire. She’d told Dismas that her prayer would keep them safe, and while he didn’t always agree with her methods, she always kept her word. There would be no surprises tonight. 

“Does it hurt?” 

Samael’s helmet was off, his face gently illuminated by the fire. He was visibly troubled, a dark crease between his heavy brow. 

“Not the wound. But what of an invisible knife that can hit its mark with nothing to bar it?” 

Dismas patted him absently, “It’s just the witches, Samael. They’re dead, now.” The fire crackled when a pocket of sap went up in flames. 

“There is phantom pain in my body...who can know if it’ll strike again?” 

“Samael…” Dismas looked around to their companions but the grave robber looked to be sleeping, and the vestal deep in her concentration. He cupped Samael’s cheek with his bare hand and forced the hunter to look at him. “The lass said ain’t nothin’ wrong with ya. I’ll keep ya safe.” 

Contempt crossed Samael’s face then was overtaken by amusement. A painful laugh escaped from his lips even as he tried to stifle it. “You?” 

Dismas pulled his hand away to cross his arms in defense, the hunter still laughing. 

“I’m sorry, brigand, but the monsters will only be half-satisfied after eating you.” 

Samael grabbed the scarf from his neck and pulled Dismas down onto his chest, giving him a rough kiss full of stubble and the taste of the earth. Dismas pulled away. 

“Don’t ye think that fixes callin’ me small.” He said, his scarred lips downturned. 

From the other side of the campfire, Fitzroy let out a snore then shifted in her sleep. The two froze and watched as her head fell forward again to rest on her chest. 

Samael snickered as his dismay and let the brigand roll off him onto the ground. There weren’t any stars in the sky, just the suffocating dark that was only just fended off by their flames. Dismas rested his head closer to Samael’s. 

“I’ll be okay.” The hunter told him, “Whatever infernal punishment this place has to bear I will meet it.” 

Dismas curled into his arm and held it. “If ya say so, big guy. I’ll be here, whether ya like it or not.”


End file.
